


Autant de rêves de passage

by RavenXavier



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bipolar Disorder, First Meetings, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 07:58:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8882620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenXavier/pseuds/RavenXavier
Summary: "[...]The blond man nodded and the interaction was over. It didn’t take more than a minute for a new wave of people to separate them, and Grantaire lost sight of him for the rest of the journey.  Forgetting about everything else, he idly wondered what would have happened if it’d been a year ago. The Grantaire from last year would have probably managed to start a conversation, for starters, if only to hear his own words. There would have been fifty percent chance that he’d annoyed the hell out of the man, of course, but last year Grantaire would have said  which means there’s fifty percent chance for a new friend or, hey, a nice fuck. Last year Grantaire had always been very optimistic about his chances of seducing pretty people, despite experience proving him wrong more often than not."(Grantaire and Enjolras, in the metro.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wizard95](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wizard95/gifts).



> a few points before reading: 
> 
> 1) I have sort of.. worked around your prompt, I hope you don't mind? I mean, it does end up happening, I just broded around. 
> 
> 2) I'm very sorry, I wrote this late, I didn't have time to betaread it before the reveal. Hopefully, my beta will be able to betaread at some point during next week, I'm so sorry for the bad english you might find in this before!
> 
> 3) I can't believe I manage to hide what a hellish nightmare the parisian metro has always been for me, but I did! I also pretended it's possible to send texts when you're in it. I'm sure it's possible when you've got the right phones, surely. 
> 
> Bref; with all that said, I really hope you enjoy the story, thanks for the prompt, and happy holidays!

_November._

 

The man at the end of the carriage was slouching over his seat, staring at people with a mean eye, muttering to himself and holding a bottle of whiskey against his heart as though it was a child. There was nobody around him despite the morning rush, and though a few people looked at the empty seats with tired envy from times to times, the view of the man seemed to revolt them too much for them to act on their desires, and they stayed cramped together instead.

From where he was sitting, Grantaire could see him perfectly. The strong smell of alcohol hit him every time he moved, and he couldn’t decide what was the worst: the nausea or the overwhelming need to have a taste of that whiskey. The bottle look old and gorgeous; it would probably burn his throat pleasantly, if he took a sip. Whiskey had never been his favourite - if he had to go for strong alcohol, he tended to go for rhum, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t some knowledge about it, enough that he knew that man’s bottle held some excellent whiskey in it - not the subpar one you found everywhere in supermarkets.

For the fourth time since he had entered the metro carriage, Grantaire clenched his hand on his lap and tried to look away. He did not believe in God, nor fate, but it seemed like the appearance of this man, just as he came back to Paris, on his way to his brand new job, couldn’t be anything else than a sign, or perhaps a test. Grantaire couldn’t remember having ever been that sort of drunk; he drank in social events, in bars, he drank until he could barely recognize his surroundings - but he’d never found himself in the metro, at eight in the morning, nursing a bottle alone and making people look the other way in disgust.

Or perhaps he just didn’t remember. In any case, seeing this man now felt strongly like seeing his own future, in a world where he hadn’t had a wake-up call, or his friends, or his sister. It felt like a warning: _you’re one sip away from falling back into this, you’re never off the hook._

The thought was more oppressive than the clutch of people surrounding him. His eyes darted back to the man, and the yearning came back in full force. The smell was a siren’s song, and he had no crew to tie him up to the mat so that he might stay safe without drowning. He hesitated, breathed in slowly, and turned ever so slightly in the direction of the man, when the metro doors opened, and a vague of new people came in, blocking Grantaire’s view for a few seconds.

As expected, most of them ended up avoiding the corner near the drunk man once they’d seen him. Two ladies went to sit on the opposite side of him, despite casting him uneasy glances, and started chatting loudly together when the man insulted them under his breath. Another man came by, his nose in a book, and gave the drunk man only a brief, annoyed and pitying look before sitting near him and going back to his reading.

In doing so, the man - he looked quite young, barely twenty - had managed to hide the whiskey bottle from Grantaire; almost startled by how easy it was to suddenly come back to his senses, Grantaire blinked and decided that, if he had to look at anything, looking at that young man was much better. He was beautiful, even under the unflattering lights of the metro. In fact, his hair - blonde and curly and contrasting gorgeously with his dark skin - seemed to shine softly.

Grantaire spent a few minutes pondering on how that sort of thing might even be possible, and then another few observing the delicate traits of the man, his high cheekbones, the small frown between his eyebrows and his pale lips getting thinner and thinner as time went. Only when he’d done a good inventory of how annoyed the man seemed to be did Grantaire read the title of the book in the man’s hand: _La France pour la vie_ de sarkozy.

Grantaire couldn’t help it; he snorted, incredulous and derisive, and finally looked the other way. What sort of people actually read those books? Even Bossuet and Joly, in their most terribly boring, activist moments, wouldn’t do that. It was bad enough they watched the TV debates (though that used to be fun, in a way, when Grantaire convinced them to make it a drinking game; of course now that wouldn’t be possible anymore and -)

The young man closed the book abruptly. Grantaire hadn’t realized he was watching him again. When he got up, he looked pensive more than angry, despite the briskness of his gesture, and Grantaire surprised himself by thinking _dear god, do not be one of those right-wing people._ Joly and Bossuet truly did have too much of an influence on him.

He smiled despite himself and took his phone out of his pocket to pester his best friends with a few political heresies. Absorbed by his screen, he did not see the young man leave the metro carriage, nor was he bothered again by the lingering smell of old, rich whiskey.

 

 

_December._

 

Winter came abruptly in Paris, like always. One moment fall still felt like the end of summer, the next the sky was clear and blue and the wind cold and unforgiving, forcing everybody to hide behind long scarves. There’d even been a few snowflakes, here and there, but they didn’t stick to the ground, which divided the parisians into two clans: the ones who craved a white winter, and the ones who hopefully wished snow wouldn’t go further for the next two months.

Bossuet, who was from the North, and had a long history with snow, tended to side with the second clan. Joly, who was from the south, was excited like a child at the prospect of Paris trapped under the snow. For all he tried, Grantaire couldn’t muster the effort to care about it. With winter had come a slugginess he couldn’t quite shake off, and by now he only got himself tiredly into the metro every morning to get to work because he was reluctant to disappoint Cosette, Valjean or Fantine.

It had taken him a little over three weeks to realize that he shared the metro carriage with regulars. There was that little old lady, who stood upright in her seat with her dog on her lap, and those two businessmen who shook hands and talked numbers during the whole journey, a young woman who had to be a student and listened to her music just a bit too loudly, as well as a bunch of highschoolers who stayed in band and complained about such and such teacher on regular basis, when they weren’t laughing about something else. There was also, from times to times, the young blond man Grantaire had noticed the first time he’d gone to work.

He didn’t seem to keep a regular schedule. Grantaire knew, because he’d spent a few days trying to work out a logic behind his appearances. He didn’t have any good reason for it, apart maybe that it passed the time; spending fourty minutes in the metro was boring: the blond man was a way to distract himself like any other, and a pretty distraction with that.

Today it was the blond man’s hands which kept Grantaire riveted. They looked dried and darker than usual, probably from the cold, and he was curling and uncurling his long fingers against his side, probably unconsciously, since his attention was fully given to his book. Grantaire couldn’t read the title from where he was, but the book was thin, which was unusual.       

There was something quite fascinating about the way he read books, Grantaire had realized over time. At first, it’d seemed like everything he read frustrated him in some way ; a frown inevitably appeared between his brows, making him look severe, as if he was judging every line more strongly than the one before. Since he kept coming in the metro with books of varied subjects, however, Grantaire had concluded it was just his natural reading face after all.

He felt a ting of annoyance when a group of women blocked his already narrow view, but it faded quickly. On his list of things he should care about, the blond man was, when all was said and done, pretty much at the bottom of it. To keep his mind busy, he grabbed in his bag the _20 minutes_ from yesterday he’d forgotten to give back to Bossuet, and turned the pages idly. None of it really interested him, apart maybe the _sudoku._

A while later, he caught sight of the man on his way out of the metro. From his pocket dangled a glove, that the man completely ignored even as a rush of cold wind swiped through the metro carriage when the doors opened and he got out. This inane forgetfulness made Grantaire grin, for no particular reason, and he found that he was quite in a cheerful mood when he exited the metro himself, and that he was greeted by the sight of small and pale snowflakes.

 

 

_January_

 

Grantaire didn’t get out of his place until the end of the week after New Year’s Eve, and only because Cosette had called, her voice impossibly gentle, to tell him that lessons were going to start again, and she wanted to know if he’ll keep coming. He'd almost said no, just to be petty, and then guilt had won over, and he’d promised to be there, wondering all the way through Cosette’s exclamations of joy if she had a secret superpower that made it impossible to say no to her, and whether she’d gotten it from her parents or not.

There was a weird smell in the metro that morning, and there were so many people that Grantaire didn’t manage to find a seat, and had to stand uncomfortably close to two men with jackets which were so big Grantaire felt they were going to choke him. It was in ridiculous moments like this that he hated being so small. He gritted his teeth, and tried to think of Cosette, and the kids - who were going to talk excitedly about their holidays, and ask about Grantaire’s, and he’d have to lie to them and -

Someone pushed him abruptly, and he lost his train of thought, keeping his balance only thanks to years of instinct as a dancer. He raised his head, a curse on the ready, but it died down against his lips when he saw who had aggressed him. The blond man looked down on him, blinked, and said:

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you.”

His voice was low, lower than Grantaire had expected from such a pretty man, and without surprise, exceedingly charming. There were a thousands things that Grantaire thought of saying in this instant, but all that came out of his mouth, somehow, was:

“Okay.”

The blond man nodded and the interaction was over. It didn’t take more than a minute for a new wave of people to separate them, and Grantaire lost sight of him for the rest of the journey. The sound of his voice, however, sticked to his mind. Forgetting about everything else, he idly wondered what would have happened if it’d been a year ago. The Grantaire from last year would have probably managed to start a conversation, for starters, if only to hear his own words. There would have been fifty percent chance that he’d annoyed the hell out of the man, of course, but last year Grantaire would have said _which means there’s fifty percent chance for a new friend or, hey, a nice fuck._

Last year Grantaire had always been very optimistic about his chances of seducing pretty people, despite experience proving him wrong more often than not.

As always, Grantaire couldn’t figure out if he missed last year Grantaire or not.

When he got out of the metro, Grantaire took a moment to take a deep breath, and then he finally checked the messages he’d received on his phone over the past few days and that he’d stubbornly refused to check until now. Most of them were from Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta - a few from the rest of the girls’ gang. The only one that struck him, though, was Irma’s.

_Don’t you think it’s time to get your head out of your ass? So you’re sober now, suck it. Turns out you’re much more agreeable when you’re not busy being a drunk asshole, so maybe try to remember that, next time we party, instead of going for a jerk attitude? Stop sulking and answer your phone. Floréal is driving me crazy._

Grantaire’s lips twitched. Something eased off into his chest.

 _“But I’m a loveable asshole, right?”_ he only replied to Irma, and started walking again, amusing himself by thinking about stupid catchphrases he could tell the blond man the next time they met in such a way.

 

 

 

_February_

The blond man was sitting not far from Grantaire, and he looked completely lost in his thoughts today, playing with the pages of the large book on his lap more than reading it. There was an edge of tiredness on his face. Grantaire’s fingers itched to smooth over the small frown in the corner of his eyes, and to move the unruly blonde curl that caressed his cheek back behind his ear.

It was very hard to concentrate today; the one thing he’d been able to focus on since he'd waken up was his clothes, and even now his mind wandered, pushed in several directions. They always came back to that damn curl, however. Grantaire bet the man’s hair were as soft as they looked, maybe more. Would they still shine if he got close enough? Was it all a trick from the poor metro lights? He tried to imagine the blond man outside, under the light of the sun. Somehow he couldn’t place him there, in the street of Paris, between hurried passers-by, screaming bus drivers, and wide-eyed tourists. Instead, his mind brought him to ancient Rome, or maybe Greece, sitting on the steps of a temple, dressed all in white, still reading, leaving everybody else wondering - _Is he a god? Maybe the son of one?_

“Go on,” said someone near him, bringing back to reality. “Come on!”

It was a young woman, pushing slightly another one, grinning widely. Her friend was giggling, and whispering objections, but not very convincingly. After a minute or two, she laughed louder and said “Okay, okay” before taking a deep breath, and moving towards the blond man, her cheeks very red.

She sat next to him, peeked over his shoulder to see what he was reading, and then back at her friend, who raised her thumbs encouragingly. Grantaire stared. She couldn’t possibly just -

“Hello,” she said with a sweet voice.

The blond man ignored her completely. Grantaire thought she would give up, but she tentatively raised her hand, and brushed her fingers against his arm. The man startled, and looked at her.

“Hello,” she said again with a smile. “I’m sorry to bother you, but can I ask what you’re reading?”

“ _Le héros au mille visages,_ de Joseph Campbell,” said the blond man politely.

“Fascinating,” said the girl. “I’m Julie.”

Her friend, who was still near Grantaire, snickered softly. The blond man glanced at her, and then blinked, his eyebrow twitching oddly. It was probable he had just understood what was happening.

“Pleasure,” he said, much colder suddenly.

The girl - Julie - didn’t seem to understand she’d lost her chance. She carried on cheerfully:

“My friend and I often take this metro to go to work and - I dearly hope you don’t find this creepy, but I’ve been noticing you for a while and I thought, well, this is the twenty-first century, isn’t it not? A girl is totally allowed to muster the courage to talk to a handsome man. Which is why I figured I could perhaps -”

“I’m not interested.” The blond man cut her, quiet and harsh.

Julie looked dumbfounded for a few seconds, then her cheeks turned even redder than they’d been before she sat. She didn’t insist this time, moving back towards her friend as quickly as she could, but Grantaire had lost interest in her already. Julie hadn’t noticed, but Grantaire had, that the blond man’s face had gotten more and more closed off as she spoke. Just before he’d answered, he’d looked downright scary, his lips pressed tightly against each other, his eyes suddenly darker.

For the first time since he’d given up on school art after one semester, Grantaire had wished for some paint to be able to capture the moment properly.

Now he just kept looking at the blond man, while Julie’s friend whispered a bit too loudly that he’d been an asshole for talking to her with such a tone. The man, however, had gone back to his book, and seemed entirely focused on it once more, though he turned a few pages back, as though he’d forgotten what he’d read before.

 _Well,_ thought Grantaire idly, _this means he must have a girlfriend. Unless he’s gay. Maybe I should go ask him, I might just have more chance than Miss Julie…_

When he realized what he’d been thinking, he shook his head, bewildered. Had he really fallen so low? Wondering about asking a stranger if he was gay? He looked over at the two girls, and thought back on what Julie had said. _I’ve been noticing you for a while…_

God - he’d been so ready to mock her a moment ago, but wasn’t he just like her? Staring at the blond man every time they happened to be in the same metro carriage, imagining things? Julie had only been braver, in a way, trying to talk to him. Grantaire closed his eyes, and threw his arm over them. Clearly there was a solution to this odd fascination, and it was made of one world only: sex.

After wondering for a moment where he’d be able to find easily a partner, he decided that simplicity was the mistress of all good things, and got his phone out.

 _Loves of my life,_ he typed to Bossuet, Joly and Musichetta, _would you mind a fourth partner tonight during the weird board games you guys like to play in bed?_

He didn’t have to wait long for Bossuet to answer: _You know this is exactly why we bought a larger bed. Fuck you for saying this to me at eight, tho. Night is forever away._

Grantaire snorted. When he looked up, the two girls had disappeared, as well as the blond man. He swallowed back the weird second of disappointment he was feeling, and only typed back to Bossuet: _I can be here at the end of the afternoon, though ;)._

 

 

_March_

 

Grantaire was soaked and grumpy when he finally got to sit in the metro carriage that day. March was miserable, like every year, and Bossuet had stolen his umbrella the day before, which meant Grantaire’s only protection had been his hoodie. He thought about telling Bossuet that his umbrella was close to break anyway but, knowing Bossuet, he would figure out pretty soon - and Grantaire would have to buy a new umbrella.

He was trying to warm up his fingers when he caught sight of the blond man entering the metro carriage, his wet hair sticking to his face; this managed to make Grantaire grumpier - no real-life man should _actually_ look that good after having spent time under the rain. All Grantaire could focus on for a few seconds was the drop of water stuck perilously between a blonde curl and the man’s forehead. Then, the blond man passed in front of him, and Grantaire’s bag was pushed back against his stomach by the enthusiastic elbow of a kid just behind him.

A kid who happened to stop right in front of the blond man, and looked up to him with a critical look on his face.

“So, Enjolras,” he said. “Will I be able to handle a machine today?”

The blond man - _Enjolras,_ how fitting, how incongruous, Grantaire could have laughed from how unexpected and wonderful that new information was - rolled his eyes.

“You’re way too small to even _reach_ the machines, Gavroche.”

“That’s discrimination,” exclaimed the kid, pointing at him.

“That’s sensible,” Enjolras retorted. “Besides, may I remind you that this is an observational internship - you’re lucky we’re letting you do anything at all.”

“You’re bullshitting me,” declared the kid haltingly. “I’ve seen George with the numeric press, _monsieur._ All you need to do is press a button. I can press a button! I do it all the time at my sister’s work.”

“Well, that would put George out of work, wouldn’t it?” Enjolras pointed out, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. “I’ll let you handle the machines when I don’t have any other man to do the job better.”

“Wait ‘til i’m sixteen,” threatened the kid. “I’m gonna put you out of _your_ job _._ Your uncle likes me better than you, anyway.”

“ _Sale gosse,_ ” muttered Enjolras, to Grantaire’s utter delight, before wrinkling his nose at the kid.

“ _Pauvre type,”_ retorted the kid very cheerfully.

Clearly convinced of his victory, the kid went to sit next to an old lady, and gave her his most charming smile, before starting to chat loudly about the price of bread these days. Enjolras kept looking at him, his face torn between an odd mix of annoyance and fondness. This was probably the most expressive Grantaire had ever seen him be, and his heart jumped weirdly in his chest. There was something very strange about realizing that the man whom he’d been keenly observing for months had an actual life out of the metro, with work and annoying kids in it. Even stranger to see this man, who’d looked more like a dream than a person, act so delightfully human.

Grantaire lost track of the time, staring, until Enjolras moved again, brisk and efficient.

“Gavroche, come on. We’re not going to be late again.”

“What’s the point of coming early?” asked the kid, getting up too. “You won’t let me use the machines. Besides, the industry of paper books is dead, the news said it.”

“Which news?” Enjolras snorted. “TF1?”

“You know, for such a _progressist,”_ began the kid, but the rest of his answer was lost as they both got out of the metro carriage again.

Distracted and smiling, Grantaire ended up missing his own station that day.

 

 

 

_April_

 

April was warm, Grantaire was febrile, and he had a prescription in his bag that he hadn’t looked at for over a week. He’d planned to go at the pharmacy at first, of course. He’d just forgotten, the first day - and then he’d been sick, for another two, and when he’d finally gone outside again, it was like seeing the world brand new again. Not that the meds had totally changed him, or whatever bullshit people against them like to say, but it certainly dulled some things out - his thoughts, his feelings…

He did intend to go buy them again, soon. Only before he wanted to remember this; the intensity of life; how his skin prickled when it brushed against something nice; how good expensive food was; how breathless dancing and fighting made him feel. He wanted to suggest to Bossuet and Joly to leave Paris for a week-end, or maybe a week, to go to the ocean; they’d say it was way too cold to swim, but Grantaire would retort they’d warm up soon enough by moving through the waves. Of course Joly would probably realize that he wasn’t taking any meds, and that wouldn’t do; that was the problem with having a best friend who also happened to be a doctor.

Could Grantaire try to kidnap Bossuet? That sounded unlikely. You couldn’t really separate Bossuet from Joly nowadays. Musichetta was too busy, and the girls were less keen on adventure than his best friends. Floréal, though? Maybe, if he caught her at the right moment. Irma would inevitably follow, but that might end up hilarious.

His mind full of plans, it took Grantaire several minutes to realize that Enjolras was here today. There was no book in his hand, but a phone that looked a few years old. Enjolras typed with the same severe face he read. It was charming. What would he think of the ocean? Grantaire wondered. Maybe Enjolras was one to look at everything severely, even beautiful things. Was it the face he made when he looked at the mirror in the morning too?

It struck Grantaire that he could just ask. Then, a small voice at the back of his head reminded me of the Julie incident, and he decided that he needed a plan of sort. Maybe the metro wasn’t a good place to meet someone, anyway. Maybe a chance encounter in the street would be nicer. _Romantic._ Wasn’t it how Joly and Bossuet had met? By falling into each other in the street, and reaching to grab their things at the same time? Maybe Grantaire and Enjolras could do the same, fingers brushing against each other, smiling pleasantly -

Of course, it meant that Grantaire had to be in the street at the same time as Enjolras, which couldn’t be left to luck. Paris might be one of the smallest capital of Europe, but it was still too big of a city. Which only meant that Grantaire had to work out where Enjolras went every morning. _Easy,_ whispered his brain. _Just follow him out of the metro carriage when he gets out._

Grantaire jumped off his seat, impatient. He glanced at Enjolras every few seconds, muttering silently what he would say to him once they’d properly met, how he could suggest to him to run away from the city with him. When Enjolras finally put his phone back into his pocket to leave the metro carriage, Grantaire had to refrain from running behind him. Instead, he forced himself to walk just quickly enough not to lose sight of Enjolras’s shiny curls (Ah! He would finally see if they shined all the time -) and moved gracefully and cheerfully between the crowd of tired, grumpy parisians waiting for their transport.

He’d been so focused on not losing track of Enjolras that he didn’t pay enough attention about what was going on around him. He felt a tug on his bag, and he turned back just in time to swipe off the hand of a pickpocket, who made a face and disappeared as fast as he’d come. Though he was clearly an amateur - Grantaire shouldn’t have been able to stop him at all - he still stopped to check if anything was missing, only for his fingers to find the crumbled prescription, caught between his wallet and dance shoes.

It felt like a slap in the face. He blinked several times, trying to make sense of his disorganized thoughts, and swallowed back his sudden disgust when he realized he’d been following a man he’d never met on the street for… no reason. Hands shaking, he managed to grab his phone, and called Valjean, because it was easier, to tell him quietly he wouldn’t be able to make it today. Then, after a long moment of staring at the advertisement for the presidential election half torn apart from the metro wall, he called Joly.

“Hey,” he said. “Do you have to go to the hospital today?”

“Not until seven p.m.,” said Joly. “What’s up?”

“Could you maybe come by, at the some point?”

“Sure,” said Joly, his tone still light despite the sudden worriness under it. “Where are you right now? Is something wrong?”

“I’m…” Grantaire felt his cheeks darkened with shame as he realized he had no idea _where_ he was exactly. He followed the movement of the crowd, until he recognized the painted walls of the station. “La Bastille,” he said. “I’m at the station La Bastille. And nothing’s up,” he added, a beat too late. “I just feel like we could have lunch together. I know this place, you’re gonna love it - not far from here, actually, they make this delicious couscous, you never had a couscous like that, Jollly, I swear to you.”

“I believe you,” answered Joly. “It might take some time for me to get there, though. Do you know some place you can wait for me?”

“I know all the places,” Grantaire told him.

He could practically feel Joly roll his eyes fondly over the phone.

“Fine, then text me the place you decided to go when you’re there,” he said. “I’m putting a jacket and leaving home. Be good.”

“Yes, doctor,” Grantaire replied, mouth dry, and stared at his foot, which wouldn’t stop moving. “Every minute parted from you is going to be torture.”

“Remember our tricks,” Joly advised with his soothing doctor voice. “I promise to be quick. And no coffee for you, nor sugar! Trust me I’ll know if you have some.”

 

 

_May_

 

Maybe in some fucked up way, it’d been good for Grantaire to have to deal with this sort of state again. The doctors said “manic”, but Grantaire avoided the word. His psychologist had noted that, over their last session. Grantaire had distracted her by rambling about that time his mother had sitten him down to explain to him that his writing needed some improvement: he wrote too fast, and you couldn’t make out the letters. It wasn’t that Grantaire was in denial of how he behaved in his _manic state._ It was only that, for a very long time, being manic had been synonym of being happy and free, most of the time.

Now he knew better, deep down. That last lesson had been hard, but maybe necessary. Getting back on the meds had been a pain and a relief all at once. He felt more balanced, and he felt more ashamed, and he purposefully avoided to take the same metro he usually took for the next three weeks after the Enjolras incident, quietly persuaded that Enjolras had realized what a creep he’d been.

Eventually, though, getting up much earlier to get to the metro became too bothersome; Grantaire kept falling back asleep and missing his station. So he resumed his usual routine, and didn’t see Enjolras again until the week after the elections.

Bossuet and Joly had been in a terrible mood after the election of Fillon. While they both agreed that not having Le Pen as president was good, they had absolutely no trust at all in Fillon. Grantaire had listened to them without much enthusiasm. No matter how much Bossuet and Joly had tried to convince him to care more about politics over the years, his opinion of politicians was still ‘none of them are any good anyway’.

“That’s because you’re a white male in his thirties,” had muttered Bossuet yesterday. “You’re basically invulnerable.You are allowed to think they’re all the same.”

“Hey, fuck you,” Grantaire had retorted, stung in his honor. “I voted left, you know.”

All this morose atmosphere had left him with absolutely no patience for anything politically related. Which was why seeing Enjolras again, after all this time, was at first a delightful distraction. His interest grew ever stronger when he realized that Enjolras was not alone. Two other men followed him, one barely smaller than him, with swimmer shoulders and rectangular glasses, the other almost as small as Grantaire, with curls that were most definitely _not_ natural.

Grantaire's curiosity deepened when the man with glasses whispered something into Enjolras’s ear, but it took a hard hit when the smaller man immediately said:

“I can _see you,_ Combeferre. Stop acting like I’m going to break at any moment. Contrary to what you may believe, I am a responsible adult who can behave in public, mister-i-almost-made-my-high-school-labo-explode-once-because-i-disagreed-with-an-old-book. So we’ve got an ass as a president. i already had time to get plenty angry about it yesterday.”

“I’m just worried,” said Combeferre.

“That I’m going to storm the Élysée?” the small man retorted. “Oh, trust me, I want to. Not much point until Enjolras raised his army though, is there?”

“There’s no point in getting angry so soon -”

“You can just admit that you’re as angry as the rest of us, you know,” the small man cut him off. “We don’t _need_ a devil’s advocate all the time.”

“Guys,” said Enjolras quietly, putting his hands on each of their arms. “This is the same argument as yesterday. There’s no point in telling the same things twice. Now is the moment we start moving forward.”

“To raise an army?” the small man said, his voice hopeful, though his eyes twinkled.

“We are not raising an army, Courfeyrac,” Combeferre said, his lips twitching.

“Not yet,” Enjolras said, looking as severe as Grantaire was used to, though his voice was a shade warmer, a hint of amusement coloring it. “We do have to be careful, now, to think this through. You’re right, Combeferre, there’s no point for action born out of anger. But Courfeyrac is also right - we are angry. Rightfully so. That France has came to a point where the choice was between fascism and an authoritative system is maddening. That we must allow a man such a Fillon, who used some of Le Pen’s plans to seduce electors, to rule our country in any way is frustrating. One man doesn’t do everything, however. In five years, a lot can happen, and once we’ve made peace with that last week-end, we’ll be able to plan properly what we’re going to do next; not because we’re angry, but because we’re hopeful.”

It was like being struck by lightning. Grantaire stayed frozen, staring unabashedly at Enjolras, distantly grateful that his voice had progressively gotten louder and that Grantaire wasn’t the only one who’d been completely riveted by his words. It wasn’t the words, when he thought about it, but the sentiment behind it. For all of Joly and Bossuet's political talks, he’d never gotten such firm and convinced belief in their voice.

“I swear to god,” Courfeyrac grinned, elbowing Enjolras gently. “I’m still sure you write those sort of things down and wait for the most unexpected moment to say them.”

“Without papers found, there’s no proof,” Enjolras said, his lips stretching into the shadow of a smile.

Courfeyrac snorted.

“Well, don’t forget those words for the meeting friday. I can just see Bahorel’s face -”

“Talking about Bahorel,” Combeferre cut him, “he said he knew some people from Rennes who planned to come to visit next month, and they’re interested in meeting with us.”

“New blood!” exclaimed Courfeyrac cheerfully.

Grantaire lost track of the conversation. Enjolras was listening to his friends, his face softer than Grantaire had ever seen yet, saying a few words only here and then. It seemed impossible to keep his eyes off him, no matter how Grantaire tried. It was almost scary, how fast his heart was beating. He was craving for… for something, that he couldn’t quite put into words.

“They won’t quit until they’ve gotten everything they could from it,” caught Grantaire, distracted, from Combeferre. “The nurses can’t handle it at all anymore, this is getting disastrous.”

“If you think we can do anything to help, then we will,” said Enjolras. “With your knowledge and our connections…”

Grantaire thought of Joly. He thought of getting up and trying to strike a conversation. He’d heard more than enough from Joly about the bad conditions the hospitals were put under to be able to hold his own on the subject. For the first time since he’d started observing Enjolras, he seriously thought about the idea of Enjolras observing _him._ It was thrilling. It was scary. It was ridiculous.

He was still staring, probably too much, when La Bastille was announced. When they passed next to him to get out of the metro carriage, the one who was called Courfeyrac turned his head to look at Grantaire, and raised an eyebrow with half a smile.

Grantaire looked away, and pretended he couldn’t feel his cheeks darkened with embarrassment.

 

 

_June_

 

“Fuck fuck fuck,” Grantaire swore under his breath as he ran down the stairs leading to the metro.

He’d been completely taken by surprise by the greve which had apparently taken over all the city, and he was probably going to be late at work if he missed this metro. He almost gave up and called Cosette when he arrived in front of the metro doors and see that the carriages were all packed of people, but then he remembered the excited little faces of the first year kids who were going to do a dance spectacle at the end of the month, and he pushed through the crowd, trying to get inside.

He heard the sound of the doors ready to close, panicked, and yelled at someone to fucking move away. Nobody seemed to obey, but from the inside of the carriage a hand appeared, grabbed Grantaire’s wrist, and pulled him inside. Grantaire stumbled, and hold on to the helpful hand to keep his balance.

It was a lovely hand. Dark, with long fingers, slightly callused. Grantaire knew that hand.

Heart beating fast, he looked up to face Enjolras. Enjolras was staring down at him. He hadn’t let go of his wrist yet, probably because Grantaire had nothing else to grab. There were closer than they’d ever been before, and Grantaire stupidly thought that Enjolras’s hair were still abnormally shiny, even with a closer look. Enjolras was probably waiting for him to say something, however, not him staring at him like this -

Grantaire opened his mouth to stay thank you; instead, his traitorous tongue said:

“Look, I understand that the people are not satisfied with this, but historically speaking, I wonder why anyone think that greves are going to change anything about the nature of our government. I’m going to guess it all starts back with the first myths of rebellion against the Gods, the higher government if there was ever one. See, when humans first stop to obey to what the government expect them to do -”

Enjolras’s face was severe, as always. Try as he might, Grantaire couldn’t stop talking. From the greves he passed through greek gods to the URSS to Coca-cola, aware that he was making less and less sense as time passed, until finally he mumbled:

“And by the way, you’re not usually at that metro station.”

It was the worst possible rant he had ever given. He looked down, cursing himself silently, unsure if he wanted to see Enjolras’s cold, dark eyes judging him, but then Enjolras’s hand squeezed his wrist imperceptibly.

“I knew about the greve. I planned through it to make sure I’d be able to use the metro.” he said, his voice as low and charming as Grantaire remembered.

“Ah,” said Grantaire. “Well, thank you.”

He looked up. Enjolras didn’t seem cold at all. In fact, there was the shadow of a little smile crossing his lips. Grantaire felt his neck flush.

“R,” he blurted out. “I mean, I’m Grantaire. Hi. What’s your name?”

Enjolras’s smile stretched on. “Hi. I’m Enjolras. Nice pun.”

“I like to think I’m clever,” said Grantaire.

“Better than to think the contrary,” Enjolras said simply.

He let go of Grantaire’s wrist. Grantaire blinked, immediately missing his warmth, until Enjolras pointed to him the free spot that had just appeared as people slowly got out station by station.

“You’re getting off after me,” he told him. “You might want a bit more space to breath.”

There was in implicit admission in this that Grantaire had no idea how to handle. If Enjolras had noticed… When? How? Hadn’t Grantaire been…

 _“La Bastille.”_ announced the robotic voice of the metro carriage.

Enjolras looked at the door, then back at Grantaire.

“Pleasure to meet you,” he said with a nod, and went down, leaving a bewildered Grantaire behind him.

 

***

 

The surprise had faded when, a week later, Enjolras entered the metro carriage and, as soon as he saw Grantaire, he smiled and came to him.

“Hello,” he said. “May I seat here?" 

“Sure,” said Grantaire. “So. I don’t know about you, but I’ve learnt a funny thing, this week.”

Enjolras leant against his seat, and raised his eyebrows. “Let me guess: we had common friends all along and we didn’t know it.”

“I cannot _believe…_ “ started Grantaire, and shook his head in disbelief.

Enjolras laughed: “What, that Bossuet and Joly have never talked about you? They did, they just didn’t mention your name, at least I don’t think so.”

“No, that they never talked about _you._ ” Grantaire said. “I mean, if I’d known you were the leader of their political organization, I might have actually shown up.”

“There’s no point in showing up if you don’t believe in what we do,” said Enjolras, more seriously. Grantaire opened his mouth to retort that there were plenty of reasons, but he closed it again fast when Enjolras put his hand on his knee, moving ever so slightly toward him with a very intense gaze: “However, if you’ve got time at any point, I wouldn’t mind trying to convince you that this is all worth it.”

 


End file.
